ReNu Modular iPhone Charger Makes Solar Power Sleek
The problem with most built-in solar gadget chargers is that it just doesn’t make sense to stick your pricey phone in the sun for the whole day while you wait for it to charge. But the Regen ReNu modular solar panel takes care of that issue – the combination solar panel and battery pack attaches to the back of an iPod/iPhone dock or USB device for easy access to solar power. When you want to charge the panel, just remove it and place it near sunlight! The ReNu panel doesn’t work quickly–it takes 9 hours to charge in direct sunlight and 20 hours in indirect sunlight for 7-8 hours of music–but enterprising solar power lovers could easily charge one ReNu panel in the sun while another is in use. Regen’s $200 solar panel won’t be available until next year, but it’s already available for preorder on the company website.
Via & more: Inhabitat
Icon magazine issue #077
Do not adjust your set – the dizzying image on the front cover of icon 077 is a real building. It’s Chiaki Arai’s extraordinary Ofunato Civic Centre: part labyrinth, part cliff face, part Piranesian fantasy, all concrete. Not bad for an architect who almost gave up architecture. Similarly outlandish but on a completely different scale is MAD’s Hutong Bubble – a silver blob clinging to the side of a house in Beijing. Saviour of traditional Chinese urbanism or glorified outhouse? It’s actually both.
Also in the November issue, fashion designer Aitor Throup tells us about the inspiration he gets from the streets and the psychological advantage that the England football team is going to get from wearing his kits. And we explore the sudden revival of ornamentation in architecture – is this the inevitable decadence that comes from using digital tools we don’t know what to do with, or the welcome end of the minimalist stranglehold on taste? Do the old styles even make sense any more?
Adorning the front end of the magazine is a report on the best stuff we saw at the London Design Festival – and 2009 turned out to be a vintage year. We’ve also got two Portuguese museums and what we saw at Copenhagen’s design week. In Review, we visit the Climate Camp, read comics with Bjarke Ingels, ogle women with Stephen Bayley and watch TV with Philippe Starck. That’s icon 077, in shops now.
Via & more: Iconeye
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